by Kiley Dunbar
‘Me?’ Niilo started. ‘Nowhere. I can’t leave Stellan and the resort.’
She nods, and a stillness settles as their conversation falters to a stop.
‘Listen, do you want to get out of here?’ Nari looks around her at the strange mixture of taxidermy animal heads on plaques, American football memorabilia and leprechauns. ‘I’m not going to get much information for my blog in this place. No offense, but it sucks. Can you give me the insider’s scoop? Take me somewhere nobody knows?’
‘There is one place I thought of. I’m willing to bet a tourist hasn’t ever stepped inside the doors. But we should eat in town first, before the drive. It’s a few kilometres outside of Saariselkä.’
‘I’m intrigued. Let’s go!’
Saariselkä is bustling with tourists. There are festive lights in the shapes of white stars and snowflakes on every lamppost and the hotels are gearing up for special Christmas meals for the tourists.
‘People eat early in Lapland?’ said Nari, detecting the delicious kitchen aromas swirling on the cold air as they cross the wide main street.
‘We do everything early in winter. I ate lunch at eleven today, and I’m usually asleep by ten, if the herd are behaving themselves. It’s harder when there are babies to look after,’ said Niilo holding his hand out to Nari, watching her step over the snow piled up along the gutter.
She too reaches her hand out to meet his but they don’t quite make contact, a little of the awkwardness of the Shamrocks bar returns, and then the moment for touching is past. They walk on, hands now shoved into pockets.
‘I guess the dark drives people indoors in the evening. I get it. But I’m a night owl, I stay awake reading until the early hours of the morning. We’d never get on, you and I.’ Nari bumps an elbow into his arm to punctuate her gentle gibe.
Niilo’s laugh is hollow, betraying the uneasiness troubling him. They stroll side by side in silence, their breath turning to white vapour and clouding their vision.
‘Nowhere’s really open for dinner tonight, except the hotels. Christmas Eve here is basically as important as your Christmas Day in England. Most of the shops and restaurants are closed and the workers are at home with their families. We could try the burger place? It’s always open,’ says Niilo, stopping to cast his eyes along the street opposite.
‘Burgers it is.’
An hour later they are on the road, Niilo driving slowly and steadily as the headlights of his truck illuminate the snow flurrying ahead of them. It hadn’t been a great meal and he’d noticed that Nari had been pointedly quiet as she lifted the bun lid to inspect the veggie patty nestling beside underdone French fries. Her notebook had stayed unopened on the table between them.
‘I’m guessing that place won’t make it onto your blog either?’ says Niilo, his eyes set firmly on the road ahead.
‘Hmm, I review most places I eat when I’m travelling. Maybe I’ll compliment the décor. Although you wouldn’t have thought Marilyn Monroe posters, Tiki surfer knick-knacks and mounted moose heads would go together, would you? I’ll tell my readers this place is the perfect mash-up between a wood-panelled, Scandi hunting cabin and a cool, chrome sixties’ diner. Accentuate the positive.’
Niilo misses Nari’s wink thrown casually towards him with a grin. ‘I wish the nice places had been open tonight. You deserve the best we can offer.’
‘It was fine. My milkshake was good.’
After a moment’s silent concentration on the drive, Niilo steers the truck off the road and into a dark car park. ‘Here is it.’
Nari peers expectantly into the blackness. ‘I don’t see anything. We’re in the middle of nowhere.’
‘I hope it’s still open, I haven’t been here for years. Come on.’
Using Nari’s phone to light their way they pass the recycling bins and piles of snow-covered broken-down cardboard boxes before climbing the clanking metal steps of what looks to Nari like a warehouse. A few cars and trucks are parked down below, and skis and snowshoes piled by the outer door. As Niilo pulls it open for Nari they instantly hear the sounds of music and voices coming from behind another door all the way across a workshop floor. The smell of sawdust and tree sap hangs in the air of the uninhabited, dimly lit room.
‘What is this place?’ Nari whispers as they pick their way past dusty work benches scattered with tools.
‘Would you believe me if I told you it was a toy factory?’
‘I’d believe anything you told me,’ Nari said, wide-eyed and smiling as she tried to make out the objects on the shelves lining the room: wooden cars, nutcracker dolls, whistles and sailboats. ‘I’m not about to have an audience with Father Christmas, am I? You should have warned me, I’d have dressed up a bit more,’ she laughs, as they reach the double doors, glimmering light spilling through the gap in between.
‘If anybody asks, tell them you work at Frozen Falls,’ said Niilo.
‘OK. What do I do there?’
‘Whatever you want,’ he replied, trying the door handles and finding them unyielding.
‘All right then, I’ll be the resident reindeer whisperer.’
‘That job’s already taken,’ he says with a smile, before attempting to force the stiff doors with his shoulder. They burst open with the impact and Nari is hit by a loud wave of Scandinavian symphonic metal coming from a tower of speakers on the far side of the room.
Precariously rigged coloured lights spin and dazzle from the rafters and strands of fairy lights cross-cross the ceiling illuminating a crowded dance floor populated by moving figures. People in their twenties and kids in their late teens are jumping and swaying, arms aloft and hair swinging. A makeshift bar area is doing a roaring trade in bottled beer. Struggling to make herself heard, Nari leans close to Niilo’s ear.
‘A… clubhouse?’
Niilo raises his voice over the soaring guitars. ‘It’s where the European kids who work at all the surrounding resorts come after their shifts; ski and chalet workers, tour guides, that sort of thing. And it’s just how I remember it.’
‘Is it always heavy metal?’ Nari roars back, just as the song ends and her question is answered by the sudden shift to upbeat Euro pop. The crowd scream and whoop and dance along as before.
‘It’s like a student union on a Saturday night. I’ll bet we’re the oldest people in here.’
Suddenly, Nari falters and turns to look at Niilo’s placid expression in the swimming blue and green lights. ‘Although… exactly how old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?’
A wary smile spreads over Niilo’s face, before he leans close to her ear and loudly informs her he’s twenty-nine.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me? I’m thirty-five!’
‘Sorry?’ he shouts, pointing to his ear and shrugging.
‘Never mind.’ Nari turns towards the bar, wincing.
Nothing Niilo did brought him closer towards rescuing the date he’d had such high hopes for and which had fallen so flat. He sipped Coke Zero and watched Nari down a shot of cheap Finnish vodka, and he smiled and made a show of willingness, hopping from his bar stool, when she indicated with a jab of her thumb towards the bouncing crowd that she wanted to dance.
He had to swallow down the mortified shyness he felt as he swayed ineptly in front of her, feeling more sober than he had in his entire life. Nari hadn’t seemed to notice his awkward moves and she danced, eyes closed and with a fixed smile, her hair whipping from side to side across her shoulders.
After a few numbers though, Nari shouted that she didn’t recognise any of the songs and that she felt like someone’s grandma in this place, so they made their way back to the bar, dodging the kissing couples.
It was impossible to hold anything resembling a conversation and, after a while, Niilo observed Nari’s pose of contented poise and excitement fade. She was the one who suggested they leave.
‘I’m sorry. You said you wanted nightlife and I thought you’d enjoy it, or at least… find it interesting enough to w
rite about,’ Niilo said as the heavy doors slammed shut behind them, leaving them peering into the darkness of the car park and hurriedly pulling on hats and gloves. Nari protested that, on the contrary, it had been fantastic, but they both knew the evening was over.
The only respite from the awkward silence of their drive back to Frozen Falls is the soothing sounds of a Finnish talk show on the truck’s crackling radio. Overburdened by disappointment and shock, Niilo barely hears it. He’s absorbed in the task of trying to comprehend what just happened. Where had their crystal clear connection gone? Why could he not reach Nari today, make her laugh, get her to open up, as he had done the day before? Was it possible his instincts really had been wrong? Why would they fail him now, when so much seemed to be at stake, when he was driving the most incredible, wonderful, interesting person he had ever met back to her cabin and most probably wouldn’t see her again after tonight?
He ruminated as he drove, while Nari, resting her head against the taut seatbelt strap, let her tired eyes close. She drifted off to sleep, not knowing the torment in Niilo’s heart.
* * *
His voice was low and soft as he woke her. ‘We’re home.’
Home. How desolate and studded with thorns that word felt as it formed in his mouth. My home, not yours, it said. You’ll be leaving soon.
He watched Nari groggily coming round and snapping suddenly upright as she realised she’d been sleeping soundly.
Niilo ran round to pull her car door open and she thanked him for a lovely afternoon and made her way to the cabin door, fumbling for keys in her pocket, bleary-eyed. ‘Come in for a drink, now you’re not the taxi driver.’
He’d been ready to accept as she worked the cabin door open, but there on the floor, just inside, stood an elaborate display of long-stemmed, blood-red roses. Nari gasped and gaped at them as Niilo watched her expression change and her mind at work.
‘What on earth?’ she exclaimed, still standing on the snowy doorstep.
Some of the blooms were partly dipped in gold lacquer, others were bejewelled with sparkling stones like black diamonds held on pins that pierced through the centre of their tender buds. The whole arrangement was contained in a wide gilded vase and tied with an elaborate black velvet bow.
‘I don’t get it,’ Nari said as she stepped inside and reached for the card. ‘Stephen?’ She glanced hurriedly at Niilo and added, ‘He’s a friend of mine. He’s in Singapore.’
None of this was of comfort to Niilo who was now looking beyond the bouquet towards the dining table where there lay a large, shallow dish of enormous hothouse strawberries, shining, red and fat. Their dish too was adorned with a garish bow.
‘How did anyone find roses or strawberries like that at this time of year in the arctic? It’s impossible.’ The words had escaped his lips before he could stop them.
‘Typical Stephen,’ she said, flustered. ‘His PA said she was sending something over from him, but I thought that arrived this morning.’
‘This morning?’
‘Yes, breakfast stuff. I mean, it was the most beautiful gift basket, local delicacies and carved bowls and spoons…’
‘Those… those were from me.’
Nari exhaled sharply with a look Niilo couldn’t read. Was she angry? She seemed mortified. Had he overstepped the mark, sending her gifts? He couldn’t tell, but he knew he wanted to get away.
They both looked back at the lavish flowers before Niilo quietly excused himself with a sharp nod, wishing Nari a good evening and a happy Christmas. As he turned over the truck engine he watched her wave distractedly from the cabin door before turning her head to look again at Stephen’s gifts.
Those roses, he thought, grown in some perfumed, sun-baked Moroccan valley and transported at speed over land and sea, were just what Nari deserved: rich gifts, glamorous and sweet, befitting her temperament. They would remind her of her travels and make her think of adventures to come. The perfect gifts for Nari.
How paltry his little basket must have seemed beside them. Niilo had no mind to compete with this Stephen guy. His was not the soul of a jealous or possessive man. He had been sent another sign, he told himself, and this time it had come in the form of a lavishly expensive warning.
Stephen’s gifts told him that Nari deserved better than a man tied to his homeland, a man who could only offer the simple things he had carved with his knife on long, Lappish winter nights, a man who had never even left Scandinavia.
He understood in that moment that he was not suited to Nari – not because of his modest income or his few possessions, but because Nari, when she found love, would love an adventurer, not a homebody.
Something within him said she didn’t love this Stephen, but she needed someone like him to sweep her off her feet. After all, she was entirely self-sufficient, she could go wherever she pleased of her own volition. She had seen the world, learned new languages, tasted every food – and her journey was still only just beginning. Whoever joined her on it would have to be just as free and adventurous. It would be preposterous to expect her to tie herself to a tiny Lappish town and a grounded, tethered man like himself.
With the truck headlights blazing, he turned onto the wilderness road towards his own small cabin and the enclosure where his herd was sheltered. He comforted himself with the thought that it was still early in the evening and he could send his staff home to enjoy the festivities with their families. The men had been kind to cover for him on his date, but he was home again and it was, after all, Christmas Eve. He would feed the animals, spread fresh bedding straw, and tend to the young ones late into the night, just as he should, and just as he always did.
Chapter Nineteen
Everything seems to have the special lustre that Christmas morning brings. Snow has fallen heavily overnight and, unusually, the paths haven’t been cleared this morning as Nari and I walk from the cabins to breakfast. The whole landscape seems fresh and new. All of yesterday’s icy, impacted footprints and gritty tyre tracks are overlaid with a pristine white blanket. There is lightness and laughter everywhere, with the exception of me and Nari; we’re both a little subdued today.
‘So, how did it go yesterday, with Stellan?’ Nari asks, peering at my face for traces of… I don’t know what, wanton shagged-out-ness?
‘Well,’ I hesitate. ‘I told him I wanted a baby, I demanded to know why he dumped me, and I cried.’
‘Good work,’ Nari says with a nod, pulling a ‘fair-do’s’ sort of expression.
‘Thanks.’
‘Why did you tell him you wanted a baby? You don’t, do you?’
‘Because that’s the sort of thing I do, apparently. I scare men away with oversharing and desperation.’
She just laughs and shakes her head. ‘So, was it as good as the Noughties, then? Did you go retro and make out to NSYNC? Did he stay over? Ooh, did he make you breakfast in bed?’
This is when I falter, feeling like a fool as I tell her how it all ended so abruptly last night. ‘Well, there was some kissing involved, yes… and it was beginning to feel like it did back then.’ Better, I think actually, way better. ‘But,’ I huff a ragged sigh. ‘But we were making out and waiting for some Christmas cookies that were baking in the oven—’
‘Hold the phone! You came all the way to Lapland looking for the man you had the best sex of your life with, and you baked cookies?’
‘Yes, and it was nice,’ I protest, but she’s right, it did all turn into a bit of an anticlimax – excuse the pun.
‘Well, things were turning interesting when there was this banging at the door. It was one of the resort staff. He barked something at Stellan – in Finnish, so I had no idea what was going on – and Stellan said he had to go. He grabbed Toivo and left in the guy’s truck. And I was left to eat six Christmas cookies all by myself in a strange country on Christmas Eve.’ OK, it was twelve cookies, and they were amazing – you’d have done the same, given the circumstances. ‘By six o’clock I was in bed, alone, watching te
lly in Finnish because I couldn’t get the stupid remote control thingy to work.’
‘Sylvie! Why didn’t you knock on my door? I was back home and on my own by half nine.’
‘You’re kidding? I thought you had the perfect date planned with Niilo?’
Nari shrugs and looks down towards her feet as we shuffle through the snow. ‘I thought we were talking about your date.’
I give her a hard stare.
‘Oh, all right! It just didn’t seem to work out, somehow. Niilo looked so good in a white shirt and black jeans, and he was polite and asked me lots of questions and he really listened to the answers – and you know how rare that is – but we just didn’t click this time. I don’t know what went wrong.’
I watch her as she thinks for a moment and notice her look of sudden embarrassment.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
She sighs. ‘It might have been my fault… a little bit, if I’m honest. I insisted we go searching for Lappish club land – kind of a long shot, I know. He really tried his best, but it was all a bit dire. He was like a fish out of water and I just felt totally stupid and spoiled for asking the impossible. And did you know he’s only twenty-nine? Twenty. Nine. I usually love discovering rando clubs but, next to Niilo, who had the good sense to know the place was rubbish, I just felt ancient and ridiculous. And then…’
‘Oh God, there’s more?’
‘Strap in, Sylve, there is more! When he dropped me off at the cabin, he saw Stephen had sent me this hideous, gaudy bouquet of flowers – who knows how, he must have had them choppered in or something – and there were these massive strawberries too. Niilo took one look at them and bolted.’
‘Strawberries and roses? These Lapland men are easily spooked.’